Kolokuma ideophones.pdf - Roger Blench

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