question about names

[Everett, Daniel]

Matthew/Adam,

The only thing remotely related to this that I have run across in my own field research is hypocoristics in Banawa. Not nearly as elaborate as is described here for Sepik, but a special stress pattern and shortened form for names in direct address as opposed to indirect reference.

This is described in a paper in WCCFL 16 and referenced somewhat in an IJAL paper with E and B Buller.

Best,

-- Dan

On Nov 15, 2010, at 4:09 PM, dryer at buffalo.edu<mailto:dryer at buffalo.edu> wrote:

I am sending this on behalf of a student of mine:

I have a question regarding names. I am working on Mehek, a Sepik language spoken in Papua New Guinea. I discovered a phenomenon where each person's name has two counterpart names, one which is used when that person is being reprimanded and one which is used when the person has done something good or has returned from a journey. The "bad" name is morphologically related to the regular name, while the "good" name has a (mostly) unrelated form. These alternate names correspond to the name itself; everyone with a given name will have the same "good" and "bad" name. In addition to the good and bad names, every name also has a unique whistle call and song.  The whistle call is used to call people out of visual range and the song is used as a form of greeting or praise. I would like to know if anyone else has noted anything similar to this.

Adam Hatfield
Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo
ah63 at buffalo.edu<mailto:ah63 at buffalo.edu>

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