Kolokuma ideophones.pdf - Roger Blench

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Roger Blench Izọn templatic ideophones Circulated for comment 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
Roger Blench Izọn templatic ideophones Circulated for comment 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
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