Kolokuma ideophones.pdf - Roger Blench
Kolokuma ideophones.pdf - Roger Blench
Kolokuma ideophones.pdf - Roger Blench
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<strong>Roger</strong> <strong>Blench</strong> Izọn templatic <strong>ideophones</strong> Circulated for comment<br />
̣ ̣<br />
Table 6. Reduplicating nouns and verbs to form <strong>ideophones</strong><br />
Single Gloss Doubled Gloss<br />
bábala to proceed by trial and error; attempt<br />
to do something<br />
bábarabàbara doing things in a confused way,<br />
with uncertainty<br />
ọbará human blood ọbara-ọbára bloody<br />
ọkpáka carapace of tortoise<br />
ọkpáka- having hard scales, lumpy (as fufu)<br />
ọkpaka<br />
ọru ú method, order, art ọru -ọrú methodical, methodically<br />
3.5 Consonant alternation and size symbolism<br />
Another attested type of symbolism which is only exemplified by single cases is initial consonant<br />
alternation. In the following case, s- alternates with t- to denote height of the water.<br />
síkpa wading in shallow water<br />
tíkpa wading with difficulty, in water up to knee-level<br />
In the following case, which is also unique, sangaláà undergoes incomplete reduplication to sangalangáà,<br />
thereby retaining its long falling tone on the final vowel, normally deleted in complete reduplication. The<br />
link with transitivity, explored in §3.2 also seems to apply here. However, in the case of yangaláà, s-<br />
alternates with y- to denote that the ideophone is applied to someone fatter.<br />
sangaláà lanky, tall and lean (people)<br />
sangalangáà have bad posture, as of a tall lanky person<br />
yangaláà of a bad posture, as of a person who is a little fatter than sangalangáà<br />
Another unique alternation is b ~ m;<br />
balakáà cross-eyed (of person) ~ maaláà, malakáà<br />
where no other case of an association with size symbolism is recorded in the lexicon. The logic behind these<br />
alternations is opaque, but the most likely explanation is that they are somehow relics of previous<br />
consonantal templates (§4.). Usually C 2 is lost and then C 3 but if C 1 were lost, and a new initial added by<br />
analogy, this could explain the synchronic alternations, and perhaps also the rare <strong>ideophones</strong> with a vowel<br />
initial (§4.1).<br />
3.6 Tone and semantics<br />
The evidence given in this paper suggests that morphological development of <strong>ideophones</strong> is usually<br />
accompanied by expected tone patterns but that these are never absolute rules. For example, in the triplicated<br />
<strong>ideophones</strong> in Table 5 and the examples following, the expected tone pattern is H-L-H, but at least one<br />
triplicated form does not obey this, kpọ́ọkpọọkpọọ ‘knocking hard on a door’. Similarly the rule that the<br />
tone of a reduplicated form is a polar tone reflecting the theme tone is true in most but not all cases. There is<br />
some evidence that apparently irregular tones may be tonal symbolism related to transitivity, as the set in<br />
Table 7 shows;<br />
Table 7. Tonal morphology in <strong>ideophones</strong><br />
Nzọn<br />
Gloss<br />
bákala twist; bend; distort<br />
bákalabàkala unreliable; untrustworthy<br />
balakáà cross-eyed (of person)<br />
bakalabákala twisted, bent, askew<br />
7