[Lingtyp] Seats of emotions: experiencer pronouns, body-part collocations and similar

Alice Vittrant vittrant at vjf.cnrs.fr
Sat Jun 27 13:24:40 UTC 2015


Dear Kilu, 

The phenomenon has been well-described for Southeast Asian Languages (see Matisoff 1986) but also for Austronesian languages (Gaby 2008). You may see my article on "Psycho-collocational expressives in Burmese", 2013, in The Aesthetics of Grammar, Cambridge University Press, ed. by Jeffrey P. Williams, for a more complete bibliography on the phenomenon in Asia.

Best regards

Alice
Le 27 juin 2015 à 15:07, "Denis Creissels" <Denis.Creissels at univ-lyon2.fr> a écrit :

> Dear Kilu,
>  
> This way of expressing emotions is pervasive among the languages of Subsaharan Africa. For example, in Mandinka (West Mande), the anatomical meaning of jùsôo is ‘liver’, but this noun is also widely used in the expression of emotions / moral attitudes:
>  
> À jùsóo bèntá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver has been set up.’ > ‘He/she is courageous.’
> 3SG liver.D set-up.CPL FOC
> (SG=singular, D=determiner, CPL=completive aspect, FOC=focus particle)
>  
> and similarly :
>  
> À jùsôo bótá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver went out.’ > ‘He/she got angry.’
> À jùsôo dímíntá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver got painful.’ > ‘He/she got angry.’
> À jùsôo díyáatá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver is pleasant.’ > ‘He/she has a kind heart.’
> À jùsôo fárátá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver tore up.’ > ‘He/she is anxious.’
> À jùsóo fìntá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver got black.’ > ‘He/she is cruel.’
> À jùsóo jàatá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver dried up.’ > ‘He/she is courageous.’
> À jùsóo kàndìtá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver got hot.’ > ‘He/she got angry.’
> À jùsôo láatá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver lied down.’ > ‘He/she is happy.’
> À jùsôo súmíyáatá lè. lit. ‘His/her liver got cool.’ > ‘He/she calmed down.’
>  
> The corresponding nominal notions are expressed as compound nouns that, according to the rules of Mandinka grammar, constitute the regular nominalization of these constructions, for example jùsùlâa‘happiness’ < jùsú ‘liver (indefinite)’ + láa ‘lie down’
>  
> Best regards,
> Denis
>  
> De : Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] De la part de Kilu von Prince
> Envoyé : samedi 27 juin 2015 10:40
> À : LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Objet : [Lingtyp] Seats of emotions: experiencer pronouns,body-part collocations and similar
>  
> Dear colleagues,
>  
> I'm working on an article on expressions of emotions that require an idiosyncratic combination of a subject (typically a body-part) and predicate (typically with a more general meaning such as `be good', `be sweet', `hurt' or similar), as exemplified by the following structure from Oceanic Daakaka:
>  
> (1) yu-on mwe yaa
> inside.of-3S.POSS REAL hurt
> `he/she is angry'
>  
> I am aware of a few other, typologically diverse languages that show such structures: Acholi (Bavin 1996), Hmong (Clark 1996) and Anywa (Reh 1996), which is described to have `experiencer pronouns'. 
>  
> I would like to know:
> 1) if you know of other languages with such structures; and
> 2) how are the corresponding nominal notions expressed in these languages (anger, happiness, sadness, love)?
>  
> Of course, I'll be happy to cite your published work or cite your personal communication as a source, unless you specify otherwise.
>  
> Regards,
> Kilu
>  
> References:
> Bavin, Edith L. 1996. Body parts in Acholi: alienable and inalienable distinctions and extended uses. In: Chappell, Hilary, & McGregor, William (eds), e grammar of inalienability: A typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton.
>  
> Clark, Marybeth. 1996. Where do you feel? – stative verbs and body-part terms in Mainland Southeast Asia. In: Chappell, Hilary, & McGregor, William (eds), e grammar of inalienability: A typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton. 
>  
> Reh, Mechthild. 1996. Anywa language. Description and internal reconstructions. (Nilo-Saharan, 11.). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
> 
> 
> 	
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> www.avast.com
> 
> 
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--------------------
Alice Vittrant
Université d'Aix-Marseille / CNRS-LACITO UMR 7107

vittrant at vjf.cnrs.fr
alice.vittrant at univ-amu.fr





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