Ideophones and the Evolution of LanguageIdeophones have been recognized in modern linguistics at least since 1935, but they still lie far outside the concerns of mainstream (Western) linguistic debate, in part because they are most richly attested in relatively unstudied (often unwritten) languages. The evolution of language, on the other hand, has recently become a fashionable topic, but all speculations so far have been almost totally data-free. Without disputing the tenet that there are no primitive languages, this book argues that ideophones may be an atavistic throwback to an earlier stage of communication, where sounds and gestures were paired in what can justifiably be called a 'prelinguistic' fashion. The structure of ideophones may also provide answers to deeper questions, among them how communicative gestures may themselves have emerged from practical actions. Moreover, their current distribution and behaviour provide hints as to how they may have become conventional words in languages with conventional rules. |
Contents
What Are Ideophones? | 76 |
Lexical Origins of Ideophones | 140 |
Vocal Gestures or Suiting the Word to the Action | 183 |
From Doing to Saying or Ideophones as a Possible | 216 |
From Showing to Telling | 263 |
Motivations for Repetition | 313 |
| 349 | |
| 374 | |
| 382 | |
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Common terms and phrases
ablaut accompanied action adjectives adverbs affixes analog animal Averroes Bantu Bantu language behavior Bolinger chapter characterized chimpanzees cognate communication comparable compounds consonant conventional conventionalized Corballis cultural Dagaare decorative derived Diffloth Dingemanse distinction double articulation English etymologies evidence evolution example existence expressive fact familiar final formal free variation function grammar grammaticalization Greenberg Haiman hand Hausa histrionic Hmong human language hypothesis iconically motivated ideo ideophones imitation inflectional Japanese Jespersen Khmer kind Korean Kunene least lexical linguistic manner adverbs McNeill meaning minimally contrasting morphemes Ndyuka Niger-Congo Niger-Congo language nonce notes observation occur one’s onomatopes pantomime paralanguage performance person phonaestheme phonetic phonological play possible pronouns properties prosaic words Ratliff recognized reduplication repetition response cries ritualization s/he Samarin seems semantic sentence signal signed languages Siwu sound symbolism speaker speech spoken language stage structure syllable synonyms telling things tion tone Udihe utterances variation verbs vocal vowel