17.758, Qs: A Little Bit of Irony; Vowel and Nasal Harmony

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-758. Mon Mar 13 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.758, Qs: A Little Bit of Irony; Vowel and Nasal Harmony

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1)
Date: 13-Mar-2006
From: Lieselotte Brems < Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.ac.be >
Subject: A Little Bit of Irony 

2)
Date: 11-Mar-2006
From: Shakuntala Mahanta < shakuntala.mahanta at let.uu.nl >
Subject: Vowel and Nasal Harmony 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 17:04:17
From: Lieselotte Brems < Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.ac.be >
Subject: A Little Bit of Irony 
 

Hello Linguist list readers,

A study on expressions like "a bit of" has led me to uses where the downtoning
quantifier semantics of "bit" ('only a small quantity of') have in fact reversed
into the more or less emphatic meaning of 'rather a lot', as in examples such as
"She is a bit of an old bag" in contexts where the speaker actually means that
she is a really old bag. Both face work and irony seem to be at play here, but I
cannot really get my head around the systematic strategies behind it.

I was wondering if there are some general formulations of such reversal
strategies for ironic purposes available and known to fellow linguist list
readers. Since this is a somewhat of a side road in my study, I am not really au
fait with such literature.

Any comments or references are much appreciated.

Kind regards,
Lot Brems

K.U. Leuven
Departement Linguïstiek
Assistent Engelse Taalkunde
Blijde-Inkomststraat 21
B-3000 Leuven
e-mail: Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.ac.be
http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.html 

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics



	
-------------------------Message 2 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 17:04:18
From: Shakuntala Mahanta < shakuntala.mahanta at let.uu.nl >
Subject: Vowel and Nasal Harmony 

	

Dear linguists,

I am working on Vowel Harmony and I would be delighted to get some
information regarding this question:

Does anyone know of any language where nasals or nasal harmony
impede/intervene or in any way interact with the process of vowel harmony?

I hope you will respond if you are aware of any work which discusses the
interaction of the two phenomena.

I will definitely post a summary of all the responses.
 
Shakuntala 

Linguistic Field(s): Phonology




 



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