Kolokuma ideophones.pdf - Roger Blench

THE INTERACTION OF 

PHONAESTHEMES AND TEMPLATIC 

STRUCTURES IN KOLOKUMA NJỌ 

IDEOPHONES 

DRAFT ONLY 

NOT TO BE QUOTED WITHOUT PERMISSION 

Roger Blench Kay Williamson (†) 

Kay Williamson Educational Foundation 

8, Guest Road 

Cambridge CB1 2AL 

United Kingdom 

Voice/ Ans 0044-(0)1223-560687 

Mobile worldwide (00-44)-(0)7967-696804 

E-mail rogerblench@yahoo.co.uk 

http://www.rogerblench.info/RBOP.htm 

Leiden: October 17, 2011 

1

Roger Blench Roger Blench Izọn templatic ideophones Circulated for comment 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. Introduction................................................................................................................................................. 1 

2. Background to Njọ ....................................................................................................................................... 2 

3. Phonaesthetic structures in Nzọn................................................................................................................ 3 

3.1 General 3 

3.2 Alternation of ±ATR vowel quality 3 

3.3 Vowel height 4 

3.4 Reduplication and triplication 5 

3.5 Consonant alternation and size symbolism 7 

3.6 Tone and semantics 7 

4. Templatic structures ................................................................................................................................... 8 

4.1 General 8 

4.2 Walking and instability 9 

4.2 Height and proportion 9 

5. Are there parallels elsewhere in Njọ? ....................................................................................................... 10 

6. Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................ 11 

References...................................................................................................................................................... 11 

TABLES 

Table 1. Phonaesthetic processes in Nzọn 

Table 2. Alternations of ±ATR vowel quality marking size and intensity 

3 

3 

Table 3. Vowel heights denoting sound qualities in Oroko 4 

Table 4. Reduplication marking state change in ideophones 5 

Table 5. Triplication in Nzọn ideophones 6 

Table 6. Reduplicating nouns to form ideophones 7 

Table 7. Tonal morphology in ideophones 7 

Table 8. A Kolokuma template for walking unsteadily 9 

Table 9. Template s-k-l-, ‘tall, thin, badly-proportioned’ 9 

Table 10. A Nembe template t-k-r describing unsteady entities 10 

CONVENTIONS 

Citations in bold in the text are actual attested Nzọn forms. Citations in italics are non-attested forms 

reconstructed through morphological analysis. 

i

Roger Blench Izọn templatic ideophones Circulated for comment 

1. Introduction 

A characteristic feature of languages worldwide, but particularly those in Africa, is ideophones, words of a 

distinct semantic type, which can fill one or many syntactic slots. Ideophones are a subset of sound symbolic 

words, which can also include phonaesthemes and other strategies (for example, alternations of ±ATR 

vowels), to signal sensory qualities. This field is often referred to as phonosemantics and has a long history 

in Western philosophy; Plato’s Cratylus has a discussion of phonaesthemes, for example. Socrates is made 

to say; ‘That objects should be imitated in letters and syllables, and so find expression may appear 

ridiculous, Hermogenes, but it cannot be avoided – there is no better principle to which we can look for the 

truth of first names’. Wallis’s (1765) grammar of English in 1653 drew attention to phonaesthemes such as 

wr-, br- and cl- although curiously John Locke (1689) in his An Essay on Human Understanding explicitly 

condemned the idea, saying; ‘Words... come to be made use of by Men, as the Signs of their Ideas; not by 

any natural connexion’. Although ideophones (or ‘expressives’ in Asian terminology) are now of some 

interest to the broader scholarly community (e.g. Hinton et al. 1994; Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001) they have 

hardly excited the attention they merit in terms of their overall importance in the lexicon of many languages 

(see review in Dingemanse 2011). 

It seems that ideophones are more prevalent in Africa and parts of Asia than in other regions of the world, 

although the evidence is more ambiguous. A relative poverty of ideophones appears to be characteristic of 

Indo-European, but a rich ideophonic lexicon is reported for some Asian languages (eg. Kakehi et al. 1996 

for Japanese; Lee 1992 for Korean), for Austronesian (Klamer 1999) and Austroasiatic (Diffloth 1976; 

Svantesson 1983) and Daic (Enfield 2007). What little evidence we have for Australian and Papuan 

languages (e.g. Alpher 1984) suggests a more limited repertoire. Lists of ideophones for other predominantly 

oral regions of the world seem to be remarkably short (see for example those in Hinton et al. 1994) which 

could signal elicitation problems. Other strategies (such as a rich repertoire of adjectives or adverbs or 

phonaesthemes) may substitute for ideophones experientially. However, language phyla also just differ and 

Africa might be a special case. 

Our understanding of the role ideophones play in natural language (as opposed to elicited examples) is still 

very preliminary. Ideophones are abundant in natural and heightened speech, notably in Africa, but absent 

from typical example sentences, hence their failure to be treated adequately in typical grammars and 

dictionaries. They can be difficult to elicit since their existence is unpredictable and speakers have no natural 

‘hook’ to recall them. Their elusive nature, in grammatical terms, has made them poor relations to other 

word classes and they have been little treated by the schools of grammar dominated by syntax (see Samarin 

1970 for field methods in ideophone research and Welmers 1973 for comment on lacunae in research). 

In a narrower but more helpful view, ideophones are expressives, characterising sounds, sensations, textures 

and feelings, usually, but not always, through morphological patterning (Blench in press). Dingemanse 

(2011:3) defines ideophones as ‘marked words that depict sensory imagery’. In many languages, ideophones 

have distinctive phonotactics, but they always have highly specific applications to the sensory world and 

describe visual, aural and emotional experiences in ways hardly paralleled elsewhere in the lexicon. They 

have a tendency to fill an adverb-like slot, and they usually have no clear etymologies. Historically, they are 

hard to treat, as they do not seem to be lexically cognate across languages. In contrast, typical sensory 

experiences can be identified semantically across languages and even phyla. Many African languages have 

ideophones describing analogous experiences, for example, the noises made by objects falling onto different 

surfaces or specific aspects of body shape. If so, then ideophones are crucial to a broader understanding of 

the perceptual world implicit in African languages. 

An aspect of ideophones in Africa that has so far drawn little comment is the application of consonantal 

frames or templates. Just as Semitic languages have a series of literals, and the insertion of different vowels 

can generate a semantic nexus of meanings, so related meanings can cluster around a sequence of 

consonants. The differential application of reduplication, consonant reduction and metathetic reversal makes 

the analysis of an underlying template more complex, especially as other semantic rules are also applied 

such as vowel shift. The semantic ‘clouds’ that result have to be understood as a crossover between 

phonaesthemes and classical ideophones. 

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One of the continuing debates in discussion of African ideophones is the extent to which they participate in 

morphological systems. In her discussion of Bantu ideophones, Johnson (1976) considered that the absence 

of morphology was part of their characterisation and certainly ideophones do not usually have inflectional 

morphology. By contrast, ideophones often exhibit what may be called ‘expressive morphology’ (Zwicky & 

Pullum 1987) operationalised by optional repeated or lengthened syllables, tonal changes and the like. 

However, as Dingemanse (2011: 140) points out, these expressive modalities are not random, they obey 

constraints in that certain forms are not possible. For Dingemanse, this is evidence for a ‘fundamentally 

different mode of signification’, marking the distinction between ‘depictive’ and ‘descriptive’ signs. 

As so often with African languages, how sharply such lines are drawn depends on the language and family. 

A group of languages where such systems appear to be important in determining lexical content is Njọ of the 

Niger Delta in Nigeria. The Njọ languages are notable for their absence of inflectional morphology and the 

fluidity with which verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs seem to interchange 1 . A consequence of this is that 

ideophones seem to participate in a morphological system which goes beyond merely expressive. It is 

strongly bounded by forms that can and cannot occur, while the importance of size and shape suggest that it 

has compensated for a lack of noun-class morphology by expressing similar ideas in other ways. Needless to 

say, the system is not perfect and many ‘paradigms’ have missing terms 2 . Nonetheless, the system is too 

structured to support a simple boundary between depictive and descriptive. Njọ uses consonant templates, 

vowel height, alternations of ±ATR vowels, marked tone patterns, which can be manipulated to generate a 

nexus of expressives. This paper 3 first illustrates the operation of phonaesthetic processes in the composition 

of Nzọn ideophones and then explores a sample of the templates, elucidating their core meanings and 

transformations. 

2. Background to Njọ 

Njọ, often anglicised as Ijaw, is a language cluster spoken in the Niger Delta of Nigeria and its associated 

waterways by people who recognize a common linguistic and ethnic heritage. Njọ lects are spoken from the 

town of Nkọrọọ, in the extreme east of Rivers State, westwards to the towns of the Arogbo clan in Ondo 

State, and from the Atlantic coast in the south to Elemebiri on the Niger and to within a short distance of 

Benin City in the north. 

Ijoid languages are Niger-Congo but their actual position is disputed; recent classifications have tended to 

treat them as early splits. They have no traces of an affix-based noun-class system, and SOV word order, 

like Mande and Dogon. They have no morphology marking transitivity on the verb, and no system of 

marking augmentative and diminutive on the noun. The Izọn languages constitute one branch of Ijoid, 

usually called ‘West Ijoid’ and form a closely related chain of languages, the most widely spoken of which 

is Kolokuma Njọ. Williamson (1965) is a grammar of Kolokuma, and a variety of publications analyse 

various aspects of the language (Williamson 1978, 1979a,b, 1991). There is also a locally-published 

dictionary (Williamson & Timitimi 1983) and the examples in this paper are drawn from an expanded 

version of that dictionary, which is still being prepared for publication. 

The tone-marking convention used in this paper is common in academic publications on Ijoid. Tone is only 

marked when there is a change of height. Unmarked is low, but all tones after a high remain high unless or 

until a low tone is marked. Izọn languages have nine or ten vowels divided into two ATR harmony sets and 

harmony is usually strictly maintained at the level of the word. However, recent loanwords, compounds and 

1 

Kay Williamson (†) who worked for more than forty years on Kolokuma Njọ left a manuscript dictionary still full of 

queries about the part of speech to be assigned to particular words. 

2 

It could be argued that our notions of regularity in African languages are far too dominated by ‘well-behaved’ 

languages such as Swahili, and the extreme variability of nominal and verbal morphology in Nilo-Saharan languages 

such as Temein (Blench in press) present the type of fragmentary system which resembles ideophones. 

3 

The genesis of this paper is as follows; I discussed the idea of analysing ideophones with Kay during 2004, and she 

then began to collect a file of examples based on the developing Izọn dictionary. I have now written a paper around the 

examples, as well as trawling the dictionary for other comparative material. All the text argumentation is by the first 

author and I am unable to say whether Kay would have agreed with my analysis. 

2


some suffixed elements can violate harmony. The open or +ATR set is marked with a subdot under the 

vowel and the orthography typically marks only the first vowel of a word, although the examples here are 

marked throughout. Nasalisation is symbolised by –n following a vowel or sequence of vowels and does not 

apply at word level. 

3. Phonaesthetic processes in Nzọn 

3.1 General 

Five phonaesthetic processes have been identified in Nzọn. These are; 

Table 1. Phonaesthetic processes in Nzọn 

Category 

Denotes 

Alternating ±ATR vowel qualities size, height 

Consonant height 

comparative height or size 

Reduplication 

‘change of state’, static vs. mobile 

Tone 

? transitivity 

Consonant templates 

expressive network 

Ideophones do not form a class like other parts of speech such as the verbs, with high levels of predictability; 

they represent general associations between sensory ideas and linguistic structures. Whether a word exists or 

not is unpredictable and which processes can be applied to an individual root cannot be known from its 

morphology. However, speakers are extremely clear as to which words do and not exist and deny the 

potential to ‘make up’ new ideophones. 

Consonant templates, where a maximally trilateral consonant frame is associated with a conceptual cluster, 

are discussed in more detail in §4. These templates can be reduced to two or even one consonant; in some 

cases, reduction through consonant deletion can be clearly demonstrated, but whether the literal frame was 

originally ‘built up’ in an earlier phase of development is less easy to determine. 

3.2 Alternation of ±ATR vowel quality 

In Nzọn there is a well-established relation between alternation of ±ATR vowel quality and size. For example 

(Table 2); 

̣ 

Table 2. Alternations of ±ATR vowel quality marking size and intensity 

-ATR Gloss +ATR Gloss 

féngelee relieved, as from a heavy burden or sickness fẹ́ngẹlẹẹ relieved; without strings; free 

féngelee in deep sleep (as of bigger person or animal) fẹ́ngẹlẹẹ in deep sleep, as of a small person 

or animal or a child 

fitikpoo damp (as of a large cloth) fịtịkpọọ damp (as of a cloth) 

fíyoo hollow (of large hole in a tree trunk) fíyọọ 

hollow (of small hole in a tree 

trunk) 

gbáun 

ringing; pealing; clear resonant sound (large 

vibrating metal or bell) 

gbáụn 

ringing; pealing; clear resonant 

sound (small vibrating metal or 

bell) 

̣ 

opéree wide open; agape ọpẹ́rẹẹ open; agape 

sikpaá full to the brim, very full sịkpaá full 

síoo profuse and continuous flow of water or 

other liquid, streaming off a surface in heavy 

rain, or pouring out of a container 

síọọ 

steady leaking of water or other 

liquid from a pond or a container 

Sometimes these alternations can carry an extra pejorative sense; 

3


teuu not too high or low; average 

tẹụụ low, esp. of roof of house (pejorative sense) 

The application of ATR vowel quality to size usually applies to ideophones and it is rare to find examples in 

other parts of speech. However, this is not uncommon across the Njọ languages. 

3.3 Vowel height 

Westermann (1927, 1937) may have been the first author to point out the relations between vowel height and 

semantics in West African languages. The exact relationship between the quality of the sound and the vowel 

used to signify it is opaque and there do not appear to be regular correspondences across languages. Diffloth 

(1994) argues that individual languages may have systematic sound symbolism applied to ideophones but 

that such relationships cannot be generalised across languages. Nuckolls’ (1996) describes similar 

correlations between vowels and inside/outside distinctions in Pastaza Quechua. Nonetheless, there is 

apparently a widespread correlation between vowel height and size or depth in West Africa, which 

resembles the Austroasiatic examples. Oroko, a Bantu language in Southern Cameroun shows this 

relationship. 

Table 3. Vowel heights denoting sound qualities in Oroko 

Oroko 

Glosses 

wáà wáà sound of moving in dry grass/leaves 

wúù wúù sound of walking in wet grass 

kpòó heavy branch falling 

kpéé light branch falling 

Source: Blench (2010) 

The vowel shift in Oroko usually operates on the theme vowel throughout the entire word. In Nzọn, the same 

consonantal template can be retained but selected vowels altered to express differentiation in part of the 

object described. These examples show vowel-raising a→o to signify the size of the creature responsible for 

a sensory experience. 

pataraá messy (faeces, spilt porridge) potoraá describing a messy thing, such as faeces of elephant 

pataraá coiled, as fairly large python potoraá coiled, as of a very large python 

A more complex set is; 

sọ́ kịị to the top of a tree 

sọ́ kịsọkị at the very top of a tree 

sáịsaị extreme top (of a thin tree) 

In this case the original simplex form sọ́ kịị was reduplicated to sọ́ kịsọkị expressing an extreme. This was 

then lowered to sákịsakị to denote to the hearer that the tree was also thin and sákịsakị was reduced to sáịsaị 

through C 2 deletion. 

The following, cited above for the absence of simplex forms, also exemplify vowel-height symbolism. 

sápụsàpụ sound of a deep-water fish jumping in water 

sáwasàwa sound of a small surface fish jumping in water and making a splash 

However, the weakening of p→w also calls for an explanation. This is not a sound-shift generally attested in 

the lexicon, nor does it appear within the context of comparative Ijoid. The assumption must be that the p + 

back vowel sequence was primary and that the substitution of a central vowel to denote small size caused 

first the labialisation of the /p/ and then its deletion. 

4


3.4 Reduplication and triplication 

Reduplication and syllable copying are some of the most commonly cited features of ideophones worldwide. 

Nzọn makes use of reduplication for a rather specific set of meanings and the optional repetition of syllables 

characteristic of many other African languages is uncommon. The semantics of reduplication in Nzọn are 

fairly specific and do not merely indicate intensity of emphasis, as elsewhere in Africa. The examples in 

Table 4 I have called ‘state change’ which is clearly allied to increasing transitivity. A single lexeme 

indicates a state of affairs, or a descriptive account of a situation, a reduplicated form a more active state or 

progression towards a state. Table 9 also illustrates the ‘state change’ model of reduplication where it 

interacts with a consonantal template. In this case, the simplex form is applied to a static or fixed body, the 

reduplicated version to a moving person. Examples of reduplication are given in Table 4 and Table 9. 

Table 4. Reduplication marking state change in ideophones 

Simplex Gloss Doubled Gloss 

sokuláà describes s.t. that is swollen or 

bulging 

sokulasókula describes s.t. that protrudes, swells or 

bulges 

sọ́ ịn restless sọ́ ịnsọ̀ịn impatient; restless due to pain or anxiety 

sọ́ kpọọ pointed; protruding sọ́ kpọsọ̀kpọ tapering towards a point 

kpée seldom kpéekpee very seldom; only occasionally 

As the table makes clear, reduplication can include final vowel deletion and polar tones. Nzọn has a 

numerous trisyllabic ideophones, many of which have final long vowels and almost always a final moving 

tone, either HL or LH. 

̣ ̣ 

akpekpéè very large; of considerable size 

angíríì coming in a group 

bababaá spellbound; dumbfounded; flabbergasted 

balakáà cross-eyed (of person) 

dịalìí conspicuous; showy 

Where a reduplicated form exists, the final vowel is deleted and the tone on the first syllable of the repeat of 

the lexeme takes a polar tone, determined by the theme tone of the stem. Thus where the theme tone is Low, 

the first reduplicated syllable (and thus the entire repeated lexeme) is High, as in Table 4 and; 

dịgịlaa protruding 

buttock 

e.g. 

dịgịladígịla ̣ describes the movement of buttocks swaying (one up, one 

down) 

Non-reduplicated ideophones with a CVCV(CV) structure usually have a final doubled vowel, and usually 

reduplicate with a single vowel; 

pasií describes person with a broad waist and well-formed legs 

pásipàsi describes movement and sound of someone with feet coming down flat on ground, lifting legs 

high and striding flat-footedly (


gbáloo being too salty (of food) 

gbáloogbaloo excessively salty 

Table 9 also illustrates the absence of reduplicated forms for some simplex ideophones. Equally common are 

missing simplex forms. The following are intriguing examples of this; neither sápụ nor sáwa are attested in 

Nzọn. 

sápụsàpụ sound of a deep-water fish jumping in water 

sáwasàwa sound of a small surface fish jumping in water and making a splash 

Reduplication can also follow different patterns to give distinct semantic outcomes. It is likely that there was 

previously a simple ideophone sụrẹ meaning something like ‘tattered’, which has an attested extended form 

sụrẹrẹẹ ‘looking sorrowful, poor and preoccupied; badly dressed’. The reduplication of the simplex yields 

sụrẹsụrẹ́ ‘with tattered clothes’ and the reduplicated extended form sụ́ rẹrẹsụ̀rẹrẹ ‘walking sorrowfully’. 

Nzọn also has the possibility of the triplication to develop further subtle distinctions of meaning. Triplication 

is not a common term in the linguistics literature, and was probably introduced by Blust (2001) in describing 

the morphology of Thao, an Austronesian language of Taiwan. Table 5 shows three examples of triplication; 

sọ́ ị ‘small animal leaping’, kpọ́ ọ ‘sound of knocking on a door’ and gbọọlọọ́ ‘freely, unhindered’. 

Table 5. Triplication in Nzọn ideophones 

Nzọn 

Gloss 

sọ́ ị 

leaping (as duiker) 

sọ́ ịsọ̀ị 

continuous leaping (as by small person with slender legs, or duiker 

sọ́ ịsọ̀ịsọ́ị 

describes walking with slender legs, like the jacana 

kpọ́ ọ 

sound of knocking on a particular door 

kpọ́ ọkpọọ 

general sound of knocking on a door 

kpọ́ ọkpọọkpọọ sound produced when a door is knocked upon with the hand or something hard 

gbọọlọọ́ 

freely, undisturbed, unhindered 

gbọọlọgbọ́ọlọ tenderly, flexibly (as of beautiful girl) 

gbọ́ ọlọgbọ̀ọlọgbọ́ ọlọ slow, stately movement of a long-limbed but flexible-bodied person 

A range of triplicated ideophones exists which have no simplex counterparts. 

̣ ̣ ̣ 

kpínkpìnkpín 

talking through the nose 

kpọkpọkpọọ́ empty, bare (as when the entire soup in a plate is licked up, leaving it totally bare) 

pósapòsapósa describes walking on slippery ground covered with some water 

pụ́ kẹpụ̀kẹpụ́ kẹ gossiping 

Ideophones can be formed from nouns and verbs through reduplication. Table 6 shows a set of nouns which 

are reduplicated using the same rules as above, deletion of final doubled vowels and stem-tone shifting 

rightwards. 

6


̣ ̣ 

Table 6. Reduplicating nouns and verbs to form ideophones 

Single Gloss Doubled Gloss 

bábala to proceed by trial and error; attempt 

to do something 

bábarabàbara doing things in a confused way, 

with uncertainty 

ọbará human blood ọbara-ọbára bloody 

ọkpáka carapace of tortoise 

ọkpáka- having hard scales, lumpy (as fufu) 

ọkpaka 

ọru ú method, order, art ọru -ọrú methodical, methodically 

3.5 Consonant alternation and size symbolism 

Another attested type of symbolism which is only exemplified by single cases is initial consonant 

alternation. In the following case, s- alternates with t- to denote height of the water. 

síkpa wading in shallow water 

tíkpa wading with difficulty, in water up to knee-level 

In the following case, which is also unique, sangaláà undergoes incomplete reduplication to sangalangáà, 

thereby retaining its long falling tone on the final vowel, normally deleted in complete reduplication. The 

link with transitivity, explored in §3.2 also seems to apply here. However, in the case of yangaláà, s- 

alternates with y- to denote that the ideophone is applied to someone fatter. 

sangaláà lanky, tall and lean (people) 

sangalangáà have bad posture, as of a tall lanky person 

yangaláà of a bad posture, as of a person who is a little fatter than sangalangáà 

Another unique alternation is b ~ m; 

balakáà cross-eyed (of person) ~ maaláà, malakáà 

where no other case of an association with size symbolism is recorded in the lexicon. The logic behind these 

alternations is opaque, but the most likely explanation is that they are somehow relics of previous 

consonantal templates (§4.). Usually C 2 is lost and then C 3 but if C 1 were lost, and a new initial added by 

analogy, this could explain the synchronic alternations, and perhaps also the rare ideophones with a vowel 

initial (§4.1). 

3.6 Tone and semantics 

The evidence given in this paper suggests that morphological development of ideophones is usually 

accompanied by expected tone patterns but that these are never absolute rules. For example, in the triplicated 

ideophones in Table 5 and the examples following, the expected tone pattern is H-L-H, but at least one 

triplicated form does not obey this, kpọ́ọkpọọkpọọ ‘knocking hard on a door’. Similarly the rule that the 

tone of a reduplicated form is a polar tone reflecting the theme tone is true in most but not all cases. There is 

some evidence that apparently irregular tones may be tonal symbolism related to transitivity, as the set in 

Table 7 shows; 

Table 7. Tonal morphology in ideophones 

Nzọn 

Gloss 

bákala twist; bend; distort 

bákalabàkala unreliable; untrustworthy 

balakáà cross-eyed (of person) 

bakalabákala twisted, bent, askew 

7


The verb bákala is a transitive verb applied to twisting something. Its expected reduplication, 

bákalabàkala, aplies to something that has been warped, and no longer reliable. However, the form 

balakáà with a final langthened vowel and a polar moving tone indicates a person in a twisted state and thus 

cross-eyed. This is then separately and regularly reduplicated to form bakalabákala used to describe 

something that has been twisted or bent. 

4. Templatic structures 

4.1 General 

A subset of Nzọn ideophones reflect an underlying consonantal template, which suggests to hearers a 

semantic field. The template then undergoes variation to imply specific meanings. This only applies to a 

proportion of ideophones, perhaps a third. The underlying semantic nexus of the templates usually consist of 

three consonants, C-C-C, with a thematic vowel and tone. Ideophones which begin with vowels in Nzọn are 

rare, and are often onomatopoeic, i.e. they imitate sounds directly, and do not seem to take part in semantic 

sets. 

́ ̣ 

odon-odón bright yellow 

ogoráàn angular; with an edge 

óòon loud buzzing or humming noise made by flies over a decayed carcass or faeces 

ọìị 

(of people) talking, crying or shouting together 

The etymology of others is transparent, as they consist in reduplications of nouns, as in the word ‘yellow’ 

above, which is derived from a yellow flower. The residue of ideophones with initial vowels remains 

unexplained (though see §3.5). 

Consonantal templates permit altering the vowels in accordance with semantics, somewhat like literal 

systems in Semitic. There are some variations in the consonants which seem to follow standard free 

variation, thus; 

r → l 

k → kp 

Sometimes these alternations occur between related forms, but they are often in free variation, for example; 

pásipàsi = 

kpásikpàsi 

movement and sound of someone with feet coming down flat on ground, lifting 

legs high and striding flat-footedly 

The C 2 is usually the first consonant to be lost, so many reduplicated ideophones have the frame C 1 -C 3 . It is 

then common for the intervocalic consonant to be deleted, leaving a CVV structure. Reduplication and 

triplication may operate. Tone in reduplicated ideophones follows the rules sketched above, regardless of 

whether there is a template. 

There is a additional rare process of nasalisation of the final VV sequence which can convert a noun into an 

ideophone. Thus; 

déin night 

deíìn pitch-dark 

fóo wide opening 

fóon describes a situation when one can see very far without any obstruction 

Curiously, Nzọn has a verbal extension suffix –ín, which indicates a mediopassive, although the examples 

within ideophones are too few to be sure these are related. In these examples, the simplex noun still survives. 

But in some cases, the reduced consonant templates are nasalised in the same way to denote an ideophone, 

but no clear simplex form survives. 

8


The following sections give two examples of typical consonant templates, with all recorded examples of 

words falling into a set, and hypotheses about the morphological characteristics of each lexeme. 

4.2 Walking and instability 

A key Izọn template is t–l–k, which suggests the concept of staggering or walking unsteadily. Table 8 shows 

a set of ideophones which all focus on this notion. 

̣ ̣ 

Table 8. A Kolokuma template for walking unsteadily 

Kolokuma 

Sense 

táantàantáan describes a person walking unsteadily, as if disoriented 

tákpetàkpe staggering, as a drunken man 

tálakatàlaka describes a tottering walk on slippery or uneven ground, as if about to fall 

tálakpetàlakpe describes walking on undulating ground in a hurry 

talakịtálakị standing aloof; standing in scattered groups 

táleketàleke describes unbalanced movement 

téetèe moving aimlessly, unsteadily 

teketeké unsteadily, as a toddler 

téketèke tottering, as a newly walking child 

tókitòki way of walking of a tall person whose legs are deformed, so that the he/she 

walks on tiptoe and unsteadily 

tóịtòị 

stealthily on tiptoe, bending forward, shorter person 

Source: Williamson & Blench (ined.) 

Vowel height does have approximate semantic correlations, but these are not the direct correlation with size 

found in other ideophones (§3.3). Here vowel height reflects the degree to which the foot is contact with the 

ground. Thus; 

a unsteady, flat-footed walk, adult 

e uncertain walk, child 

o walking on tiptoe 

The introduction of the high front vowel, in tókitòki for example, indicates to the hearer that a tall person is 

involved, since the vowels can flip to +ATR in tóịtò ̣ ị ̣ to imply a shorter person performing the same actions. 

The complete reduplication of the template, tálakatàlaka implies walking on even ground. Once the last 

vowel is raised, tálakpetàlakpe, the implication is that the person is in a hurry. 

4.2 Height and proportion 

The template s-k-l has a core meaning of ‘tall, thin, badly-proportioned’ and it can be restructured through a 

variety of phonaesthetic processes (Table 9). 

 

Table 9. Template s-k-l-, ‘tall, thin, badly-proportioned’ 

Static 

Moving, unbalanced 

CVCVCV -V Gloss CV CVCV- Gloss 

CV CVCV 

sókoroò higher than normal, as a sókolosòkolo describes the gait 

long-legged person or 

of someone very 

someone on stilts 

tall 

and 

unbalanced 

sọ́ kọrọọ̀ higher than normal, as a sọ́ kọlọsòḳọlọ describes gait of 

long-legged person with 

someone with tiny 

slender legs 

legs 

sekeléè out of proportion; 

describes a person whose 

sékelesèkele describes the 

walking of a tall 

9 

tallest 

taller 

tall 

Vowels 

-o-o-o 

-ọ-ọ-ọ 

-e-e-e


Static 

sakeléè 

sakaláà 

lower limbs are smaller 

than the body 

tall, thin with a badlyproportioned 

body and 

tiny legs 

not very tall; thin and 

delicate in posture 

Moving, unbalanced 

unbalanced person 

sákelesàkele not attested tall -a-e-e 

sákalasàkala not attested medium -a-a-a 

Exact segmental reduplication with a polar tone is used to contrast static and moving objects. Vowel height 

a→e→o indicates the height of the thing described, with the low central vowel suggesting the least height. 

Combinations of vowels are applied to signify elements of what is described, such ‘tall but with thin legs’, 

suggesting something out of proportion. Nzọn also uses the switch between ±ATR vowel qualities to signify 

an overall size distinction, hence the alternation o/ọ in the derivations of sókoroò. Paradigms are never 

perfect; two potential forms are not attested and are given in italics in a reconstructed form, following the 

logic of the other items. 

5. Are there parallels elsewhere in Njọ? 

Given the density of the system in Nzọn it can reasonably be asked whether such systems exist elsewhere in 

the Njọ group. Maduka (1988) has explored the ‘phonosemantics’ of ideophones in Nembe and reached 

similar conclusions concerning the correlation of vowel height with size and shape. Documentation is an 

issue; only very large dictionaries cite enough material to provide evidence for more recondite types of 

ideophone and Nembe is the other language for which such a dictionary exists (Kaliai 1964; rev. ed. Kaliai, 

Williamson & Blench ined.). The Nembe dictionary has the problem that ideophones are not specifically 

marked, and are listed under adjectives, adverbs and sometimes verbs. Moreover, Nembe has a 

morphological process for marking adverbs, the addition of a suffix, -mọ, which is a verbal extension in 

Nzọn. The revised version of the dictionary does indicate ideophones through secondary re-analysis. With 

these caveats in mind, it seems there are certain pan-Njọ similarities. For example, there is clearly a 

consonantal frame to denote unsteady walking, related to the examples in Table 8. Table 10 shows a related 

set of Nembe ideophones around the notion of walking an unsteady manner or tottering. 

̣ 

Table 10. A Nembe template t-k-r describing unsteady entities 

Nembe 

Gloss 

tẹrẹ 

to support; keep from falling 

téketéke totter; walk unsteadily and fast (especially of child learning to walk, or somebody 

staggering) 

tekéke 

unsteady; insecure 

téperetépere unsteady; tottering 

wekélewekéle unsteady (of canoe) 

yẹkérẹyẹkéṛẹ 

unsteady; restless (behaviour) 

kérekére unsteady in behaviour 

kérekére 

léelée 

unsteady 

lékeléke 

unsteady; restless 

leketélekete wavering, oscillating unsteadily; becoming unsteady 

The basic verb underlying these may be tẹ(ke)rẹ ‘support; keep from falling’ although the ATR vowel 

alternation is unexplained. This can be reduplicated in various ways and then shortened to produce such 

forms as tekéke. The k→p alternation in téperetépere almost certainly reflects original k→kp, attested in 

Nzọn and then a loss of the velar onset. As with the examples in §3.5, the initial consonant can undergo 

mutation (t → w,y) to describe slightly different types of unsteadiness. Strikingly, in Nembe, both syllable 

metathesis and complete syllabic reversal (C 1 /C 2 /C 3 → C 3 /C 2 /C 1 ) are permitted, hence leketélekete, which is 

in turn shortened to lékeléke and then léelée, creating forms which have hardly any surface similarities to 

the orginal template. Nembe does not seem to use word-internal shifts in vowel height to signify size 

properties of the entity described. The Nembe system has yet to be fully documented, but it is clear that it 

10


bears more than passing similarities to the Nzọn system, both at the structural and segmental levels. 

Eventually, more detailed descriptions of other Ijoid languages may permit a deeper analysis of the system at 

a family level. 

6. Conclusions 

Ideophones in Nzọn are a rich lexical field which has so far lain undescribed. Although Nzọn resembles other 

branches of Niger-Congo in general morphology, it has a number of distinctive features which seem to be 

characteristic of Njọ in general and which are not necessarily widespread in Africa. The most striking of these 

is the use of consonant templates, with a basic triliteral system, which can be modified by the application of 

different vowels, and by deletion of one or more consonants from the template, as well as reduplication and 

triplication. There are also a number of low-incidence processes, which seem to have expressive content, 

such as final vowel-lengthening, nasalisation and initial consonant replacement. However, examples are too 

few to make effective generalisations. 

Expressive systems in African languages are often complementary; where morphological loss in one area 

causes a lacuna in the semantic repertoire, another part of the system is rebuilt to express those same ideas 

using different means. The structuring of ideophones is relatively unusual and Nzọn has gone further in this 

direction than most Niger-Congo languages, although the system could never be described as a truly 

inflectional. Nonetheless, by taking structural elements found across ideophones in West Africa, Nzọn is 

moving away from the depictive pole towards a descriptive system. Evidence from related languages such as 

Nembe suggest there are still other strategies in the morphological repertoire which can be systematised to 

enrich it. 

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