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The Ideophone in Zulu - a re-examination of descriptive and conceptual notions
... Specifically, ideophones may function as a predicate or a part of a predicate (thus, often headed by quotative markers or dummy speech/do verbs) as well as a verbal, clausal, or adnominal modifier (Andrason 2020(Andrason , 130, 2021a, see also Ameka 2001, Msimang and Poulos 2001, 238-9, Voeltz and Kilian-Hatz 2001, 3, Childs 2003, 123, Dingemanse 2012. In all such cases, an ideophone may approximate or be syntactically indistinguishable from a verb, adverb, and/or adjective (Marivate 1985, Childs 1995, Ameka 2001, Nuckolls 2001, Schafer 2001, Beck 2008. ...
... Crucially, ideophonic bases do not contain "ideophonizers" similar to the ideophonizing suffix -iyani/-iyane in Nguni languages (Zondo 1982, Msimang and Poulos 2001, 242-3, Andrason 2020. In other words, no ideophone exhibits an affix that would mark ideophones overtly as members of the ideophonic category and/or derive them from other non-ideophonic lexical classes. ...
The present article is dedicated to the syntax, morphology, and phonetics of ideophones in Arusa Maasai. After examining the compliance of 69 ideophonic lexemes with the typologically driven prototype of an ideophone, the authors conclude that Arusa ideophones may range from canonical to non-canonical even within a single language module. When syntax, morphology, and phonetics are considered jointly, holophrastic and asyntagmatic ideophones are more canonical than ideophones used as verbal modifiers and parts of complex predicates, which are, in turn, more canonical than predicative ideophones. The extent of canonicity is inversely correlated with the systematicity and integration of ideophones in sentence grammar and their diffusion into other lexical classes: predicative ideophones have been fully incorporated into the category of verbs; for ideophones employed as verbal modifiers, a comparable incorporation into the category of adverbs has not been completed; for all the other types, especially holophrastic and asyntagmatic, ideophones still maintain their categorical individuality. Overall, ideophones constitute an "old" category in Arusa, one that is well advanced on its grammaticalization cline.
... However, cross-linguistic investigations of depiction suggest that it is more pervasive than once thought. Rich inventories of sound-symbolism in the form of ideophones (marked words depictive of sensory imagery; Dingemanse, 2012) have been found in an array of spoken languages spanning sub-Saharan Africa (Msimang & Poulos, 2001;Schaefer, 2001), Australia (Alpher, 2001;McGregor, 2001), South-eastern Asia (Watson, 2001), and South America (Nuckolls, 2001). Moreover, many languages do not restrict their depictive forms to representations of sound (i.e., onomatopoeia), but also include depictions of other sensory perceptions (Akita, 2009;Dingemanse, 2012). ...
Language is traditionally characterized as an arbitrary, symbolic system, made up of discrete, categorical forms. But iconicity and gradience are pervasive in communication. For example, in spoken languages, word forms can be “played with” in iconic gradient ways by varying vowel length, pitch, or speed (e.g., “It's been a loooooooong day”). However, little is known about this process in sign languages. Here, we (1) explore gradient modification in three dimensions of motion in American Sign Language (ASL), and (2) ask whether the three dimensions are equally likely to be modified. We asked deaf signers of ASL ( n = 11, mean age = 49.3) to describe an event manipulated along speed, direction, or path, and observed their use of gradient modification in lexical and depicting signs. We found that signers alter the forms of both types of signs to enhance meaning. However, the three motion dimensions were not modified equally in lexical signs, suggesting constraints on gradient modification. These constraints may be linguistic in nature, found only in signers. Alternatively, the constraints could reflect difficulties in using the hands to convey particular modifications and, if so, should be found in speakers as well as signers.
... Certain Bantu languages show evidence of a process of deideophonization in which some ideophonic roots become more like verbs. For instance, in Tsonga a subset of ideophones appears with agreement morphology typical of verbs (Marivate 1983;Msimang & Poulos 2001), while others tend to appear in a quotative frame more typical of ideophones in Bantu. The two realizations exist in parallel, indicating a degree of flexibility or perhaps an ongoing process of deideophonization (Dingemanse & Akita 2017). ...
Many of the world’s languages feature an open lexical class of ideophones, words whose marked forms and sensory meanings invite iconic associations. Ideophones (also known as mimetics or expressives) are well-known from languages in Asia, Africa and the Americas, where they often form a class on the same order of magnitude as other major word classes and take up a considerable functional load as modifying expressions or predicates. Across languages, commonalities in the morphosyntactic behaviour of ideophones can be related to their nature and origin as vocal depictions. At the same time there is ample room for linguistic diversity, raising the need for fine-grained grammatical description of ideophone systems. As vocal depictions, ideophones often form a distinct lexical stratum seemingly conjured out of thin air; but as conventionalized words, they inevitably grow roots in local linguistic systems, showing relations to adverbs, adjectives, verbs and other linguistic resources devoted to modification and predication.
... A number of scholars (e.g. Childs, 1989;Ameka, 2001;Elders, 2001;Msimang and Poulos, 2001) have observed that ideophones are sometimes diffused into other word classes in some of the languages where they occur. This observation corroborates Dingemanse's (2015) postulation that reduplication in the depictive domain is what speakers generally mimic in the descriptive domain where otherwise arbitrary forms are reduplicated for iconic reasons. ...
The purpose of this study is to account for the functions of reduplication Nigerian Pidgin in a more comprehensive way than in previous work, by shifting the focus away from de-contextualized assignments of unitary meaning, and toward a full range of context-sensitive readings. The data for the study come from Wazobia fm radio programmes, as well as interviews and focus group discussions with native speakers of the language. Reduplication is attested in word classes such as ideophones, adverbs, numerals, adjectives, nouns, verbs and pronouns in Nigerian Pidgin. Using a version of the prototype theory elaborated by Lakoff and other Cognitive linguists, I represent the various readings of reduplicative constructions for each word class as radial categories, and show that both central and peripheral meanings are attested, and are indeed motivated by varying degrees of family resemblance.
... Von Staden (1977), in his article entitled Some remarks on ideophones in Zulu, discusses the syntactic feature of the ideophone. Msimang and Poulos (2001), in their article The ideophone in Zulu: A re-examination of conceptual and descriptive notions, look at other linguistic grounds for a reclassification of the ideophone in isiZulu and De Schryver (2009), in his article The lexicographic treatment of ideophones in Zulu, examines the challenges that are presented by ideophones in both monolingual and bilingual lexicography in a corpus-driven isiZulu-English school dictionary project. ...
The meaning of words comes into play when words as units of translation are to be translated from one language into another. Lexical items that are extant in one language but not in others pose enormous problems for translators. The translation of ideophones – which feature very prominently in African discourse – is a case in point in this article. Translators faced with the translation of such forms are required to come up with strategies to aptly express their meanings in the target text. This article seeks to establish how CSZ Ntuli, in his English translation of an isiZulu short story Uthingo Lwenkosazana by DBZ Ntuli, has translated some of the ideophones used by the original author. Translation strategies used by CSZ Ntuli in his translation to express the meanings of the isiZulu ideophones will be brought to light in this article. It will be confirmed that CSZ Ntuli, using different lexical forms in the target language, has effectively changed unfamiliar isiZulu cultural notions to concepts that the English target reader can relate to. It will also be shown that the meanings of the isiZulu ideophones can be expressed in the target language using approximation and amplification as translation strategies provided that the translator has a good command of both source and target languages. The discussion will also look at how various translation scholars view the notion of equivalence at word level, and research on ideophones in isiZulu will also be reviewed.
... This stems from the markedness and/or 'exoticness' of ideophones, in general, and their status as 'phonological rebels' ( Kunene 2001: 183). That is, because of their sound 1 Consider for instance genetically unrelated and geographically distant languages such as Ewe ( Ameka 2001: 29), Nigerian Pidgin ( Faraclas 1996: 56), Urarina (Olawsky 2006: 83), Bengali (Rácová 2014: 1), and Polish (Andrason forthcoming (a)). 2 Observe that ideophones typically constitute roots ( Rubino 2001) and are not derived from other lexical classes ( Msimang and Poulos 2001). symbolism and iconicity, ideophones often exhibit phonology that is 'anomalous' when compared to the other parts of a language ( Voeltz and Killan-Hatz 2001: 2;Childs 2003: 192;Dingemanse 2012: 655-656;Lahti, Barrett and Webster 2014: 335). ...
The present paper analyzes the exoticness of Khoekhoe-sourced ideophones as a possible factor that stimulated the introduction of certain phonological novelties to the sound system of Xhosa. Having analyzed Khoekhoe-sourced ideophones of Xhosa for five exotic features postulated crosslinguistically (aberrant sounds and configurations of sounds, length, tones and harmony), the author concludes the following: due to their intense phonological exoticness and the crosslinguistic propensity for unaltered borrowing, Khoekhoe-sourced ideophones may have played a relevant role in the Khoekhoe-Xhosa transfer. The efficiency of this transfer seems to be correlated with the frequency of a given exotic feature in the donor Khoekhoe lexemes.
... It is no exaggeration, then, that in Bantu lexicography ideophones are a lexicographer's worst nightmare. This is so, not because of their peculiar linguistic properties -be these phonological, morphological or syntactic (see for example, with specific reference to Zulu: Fivaz (1963), Voeltz (1971), Von Staden (1974, 1977, Taljaard and Bosch (1993: 162), Childs (1996), Poulos and Msimang (1998: Chapter 8), or Msimang and Poulos (2001)) -but because of their semantic import that is hard to pinpoint, describe and represent lexicographically. ...
The ideophone, a word class not unique to but highly characteristic of the Bantu languages, presents particular challenges in both monolingual and bilingual lexicography. Not only is this part of speech without a counterpart in most other languages, the meaning of ideo-phones is highly elusive. In this research article these challenges are studied by means of an analy-sis of the treatment of ideophones in a corpus-driven Zulu–English school dictionary project.
Keywords: lexicography, dictionary, bilingual, corpus, frequency, bantu, zulu (isizulu), english, ideophone, semantic import, paraphrase, part-of-speech mismatch
... It is no exaggeration, then, that in Bantu lexicography ideophones are a lexicographer's worst nightmare. This is so, not because of their peculiar linguistic properties -be these phonological, morphological or syntactic (see for example, with specific reference to Zulu: Fivaz (1963), Voeltz (1971), Von Staden (1974, 1977, Taljaard and Bosch (1993: 162), Childs (1996), Poulos and Msimang (1998: Chapter 8), or Msimang and Poulos (2001)) -but because of their semantic import that is hard to pinpoint, describe and represent lexicographically. ...
p>Abstract: The ideophone, a word class not unique to but highly characteristic of the Bantu languages, presents particular challenges in both monolingual and bilingual lexicography. Not only is this part of speech without a counterpart in most other languages, the meaning of ideophones is highly elusive. In this research article these challenges are studied by means of an analysis of the treatment of ideophones in a corpus-driven Zulu–English school dictionary project.
Keywords: LEXICOGRAPHY, DICTIONARY, BILINGUAL, CORPUS, FREQUENCY, BANTU, ZULU (ISIZULU), ENGLISH, IDEOPHONE, SEMANTIC IMPORT, PARAPHRASE, PART-OF-SPEECH MISMATCH
Samenvatting: De lexicografische behandeling van ideofonen in Zoeloe. De ideofoon, een woordklasse die niet uniek maar wel heel karakteristiek is voor de Bantoetalen, is een echte uitdaging in zowel de monolinguale als bilinguale lexicografie. Niet enkel heeft deze woordklasse geen equivalent in de meeste andere talen, de betekenis van ideofonen is heel moeilijk vast te leggen. In dit onderzoeksartikel worden deze uitdagingen onderzocht aan de hand van een analyse van de behandeling van ideofonen in een corpus-gedreven Zoeloe–Engels schoolwoorden-boekproject.
Sleutelwoorden: LEXICOGRAFIE, WOORDENBOEK, TWEETALIG, CORPUS, FRE-QUENTIE, BANTOE, ZOELOE, ENGELS, IDEOFOON, SEMANTISCHE LADING, PARAFRASE, VLOEKENDE WOORDKLASSEN</p
... It is no exaggeration, then, that in Bantu lexicography ideophones are a lexicographer's worst nightmare. This is so, not because of their peculiar linguistic properties -be these phonological, morphological or syntactic (see for example, with specific reference to Zulu: Fivaz (1963), Voeltz (1971), Von Staden (1974, 1977, Taljaard and Bosch (1993: 162), Childs (1996), Poulos and Msimang (1998: Chapter 8), or Msimang and Poulos (2001)) -but because of their semantic import that is hard to pinpoint, describe and represent lexicographically. ...
The ideophone, a word class not unique to but highly characteristic of the Bantu languages, presents particular challenges in both monolingual and bilingual lexicography. Not only is this part of speech without a counterpart in most other languages, the meaning of ideo-phones is highly elusive. In this research article these challenges are studied by means of an analy-sis of the treatment of ideophones in a corpus-driven Zulu–English school dictionary project.
The biggest challenge in the study of language evolution is the fact that language does not leave fossil records in the rock. However, it has been argued that some reminants of earlier forms of language has been fossilized in modern language. (1990) suggested that syntactic properties of protolanguage (a communication system that is a precursor to modern language) can be seen in utterances produced by Broca's aphasics, infants in the two-word stage, speakers of a Pidgin language, and Genie, who were deprived of language input until the age of 13 due to abusive imprisonment (Curtis 1977). (2002) suggests that interjections such as ouch, wow, and oh is a fossil from a stage in the development of protolangauge in which words did not combine syntactically and the referents of the words were situation-bound and mostly affective. In this article, we will explore another possible fossil of protolanguage, namely sound-symbolic words. More specifi cally, this article investigates the semantic properties of these words, taking sound symbolic words in Japanese as an example. Sound symbolic words have certain restrictions as to what type of events and states they can refer to. It is suggested that these restrictions might tell us the world view held by the speakers of protolanguage that heavily relied on sound symbolic words.
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