[Lingtyp] Seats of emotions: experiencer pronouns, body-part collocations and similar
Mark Donohue
mark at donohue.cc
Sun Jun 28 23:50:39 UTC 2015
At risk of adding yet another posting to what is pretty much a universal
phenomenon in language, think about Indo-European.
Most Indo-European languages associate feelings with the organ that pumps
blood. Think of the metaphors, love songs, and poetry associated with
English heart, Spanish corazón, Portuguese coração, French coeur, Greek
καρδία, etc. Think also of English expressions such as “gut feeling,”
"gut-wrenching", “butterflies in X’s stomach,” “POSSESSOR’s heart jumped,”
“POSSESSOR’s heart reaches out to Y,” "cold-hearted", etc., to see how
common (internal) body-part metaphors are in the expression of feelings.
And we could mention expressions in English like smart-ass, dumb-ass, etc.,
to show that associating personal characteristics with body parts is all
over the place (see Van Klinken 2007 for a fascinating contact perspective
on this).
One rich attestation of body-part-as-seat-of-emotion concerns collocations
with _isa_ 'heart, core' from Oirata (De Josselin de Jong 1937), in Eastern
Indonesia:
isa ‘heart, core, contents’
isa aharahe ‘hopeless’ (ahara only appears in this compound; he ‘NEG’)
isa arutu ‘greedy’ (arutu only appears in this compound)
isa elewe ‘dejected’ (alewe only appears in this compound)
isa hanate ‘compassionate’ (hanate ‘distress’)
isa huhule ‘loathe, be sick’ (huhule ‘disease’)
isa huna ‘in the middle’ (huna ‘calf [of leg]’)
isa iliare ‘grow faint-hearted’ (i-liare ‘REFL-transformed)
isa kahare ‘craving’ (kahare ‘spoil, bad’)
isa lolo he ‘anxious, worrying’ (lolo ‘good, true’; he ‘negative’)
isa malare ‘angry, jealous’ (malare ‘sour, bitter, hot’)
isa eme halu ‘repent, regret’ (eme ‘get, cause’; halu ‘remorse’)
isa muduni ‘keep a secret’ (muduni ‘within’)
isa seile ‘hold out, constrain oneself’ (seile ‘draw, pull’)
isa tapu ‘breast, heart’ (tapu ‘kernel, pit, seed’)
isa tapu anaje ‘think over’ (anaje ‘try, fetch’)
isa tapu nanate ‘abhor, shudder’ (nanate ‘APPL-stand’)
isa tapu pai ‘make a keepsake’ (pai ‘cause’)
isa tapu ruru ‘be moved’ (ruru ‘throb, shake’)
isa tutu ‘like, want’ (tutu ‘drink’)
isa umumu ‘forget’ (umu ‘die’)
isa wale ‘gift (out of charity)’ (wale ‘walk, travel’)
isa wara ‘at ease, content’ (wara ‘clear, clean, evident’)
isa pai wara ‘move one’s heart, inspire with sympathy, satisfy’ (pai
‘cause’)
A particularly interesting reference on the subject is Musgrave (2006), in
which we take the widespread distribution of these constructions as a
given, and then examine actual frequencies and elaborations. There is some
additional areal discussion in Donohue & Grimes (2008), and beautifully
nuanced discussion in Van Klinken's work.
References
De Josselin de Jong, J. P. B. 1937. Studies in Indonesian culture I:
Oirata, a Timorese settlement on Kisar. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche
Uitgeverij.
Donohue, Mark, and Charles E. Grimes. 2008. Yet more on the position of the
languages of eastern Indonesia and East Timor. *Oceanic Linguistics* 47
(1): 115-159.
Musgrave, Simon. 2006. Complex emotion predicates in eastern Indonesia:
evidence for language contact? In Matras, Y., McMahon, A., & Vincent, N.
(eds.) Linguistic Areas: Convergence in Historical and Typological
Perspective, 227-243. Houndmills & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Van Klinken-Williams, Catharina. 2007. Is he hot-blooded or hot inside?
Expression of emotion and character in Tetun Dili. *The 5th ENUS Conference
on Language and Culture*, The University of Nusa Cendana, Kupang. (
http://www.tetundit.tl/publications.html)
Van Klinken-Williams, Catharina. 2010. Metaphors we judge by: Mediation in
Wehali. In John Bowden, Nikolaus Himmelmann and Malcolm Ross (eds), A
journey through Austronesian and Papuan linguistic and cultural space:
papers in honour of Andrew Pawley. Canberra, Pacific Linguistics
On 29 June 2015 at 07:12, Stef Spronck <Stef.Spronck at kuleuven.be> wrote:
> Missionary linguist Howard Coate, who did a lot of work in the
> Kimberley region of Western Australia has an interesting unpublished
> conference paper with the following passage about the metaphorical
> extension of body parts in Ungarinyin (non-Pama-Nyungan, Worrorran):
>
>
>
> `By the cultural outlook of the people, it seems to be a given assumption
> that:
>
>
>
> The ears are the seat of wisdom.
>
> The stomach is the seat of happiness, pleasure and generosity.
>
> The liver is the seat of affection - the heart very rarely so.
>
> The pancreas is the seat of anger.’
>
>
>
> (The metaphorical extension of the ears has been documented in languages
> throughout Australia, see Nick Evans and David Wilkins’s 2000 Language
> paper ‘In the mind’s ear’. )
>
>
>
> This type of body part construction is very frequent in Ungarinyin
> narratives, examples from Howard Coate’s paper include (glosses added):
>
>
>
> (1) a-di o-ni-ngarri-nga
>
> 3msg-liver 3msg.O:3sg.S-act.on-PST-SUB-EMPH
>
> `He became suspicious (that another man was loving his wife)' (Lit. his
> liver was smiting him)
>
>
>
> (2) a-jila a-ma-nga
>
> 3msg-pancreas 3msg.O:3sg.S-take-PST
>
> `He was angry with him' (Lit. he took his pancreas)
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Stef
>
>
>
> *From:* Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Peter Austin
> *Sent:* zondag 28 juni 2015 20:44
> *To:* Matthew Dryer
> *Cc:* <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Seats of emotions: experiencer pronouns,
> body-part collocations and similar
>
>
>
> For Australian Aboriginal languages there are a number of published
> sources, including Maia Ponsonnet's recent book on Dalabon (
> https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/clscc.4/main) and Father Anthony
> Piele's book/dictionary on Kukatja (out of print but you can order from
> Amazon http://www.gould.com.au/Body-Soul-Aboriginal-Viewpoint-p/hes009.htm
> ).
>
>
>
> In Dieri, there are constructions parallel to those you describe that
> involve the word kalhu 'liver', eg. kadlhu marra- 'liver become.red' = to
> yearn for, kalhu miltyarri- 'liver become.pieces' = to feel sorry for,
> kalhu paki- 'liver burst' = to grieve, feel sorry for.
>
>
>
> In Jiwarli the parallel constructions use puju 'stomach', eg. puju
> pakalyarri- 'to feel happy' (lit. stomach become.good), puju walhi 'to be
> sad' (lit. stomach bad).
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Peter
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 28 June 2015 at 17:07, Matthew Dryer <dryer at buffalo.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> Walman (Torricelli; Papua New Guinea) has a number of idioms of this sort,
> though some of these denote mental states that are not really emotions, but
> subjective physical states, like ‘be hungry’ or ‘feel sick’, or cognitive
> states like ‘remember’. Most involve as subject a noun *won*, whose only
> contemporary meaning is ‘chest’, but which is clearly cognate to the word
> for ‘heart’ in related languages. With the meaning ‘chest’, *won* is
> grammatically feminine, like most inanimate nouns in Walman. But in idioms
> relating to mental states, however, *won* is masculine, as subject
> agreement with the copula *-o *in (1) shows.
>
>
>
> (1)
>
> To
>
> kum
>
> won
>
> n-o
>
> kisiel.
>
>
>
> so
>
> 1sg
>
> heart
>
> 3sg.m.subj-be
>
> fast
>
> ‘Then I got angry.’
>
>
>
> When the predicate in these idioms is an adjective, as in (1), the noun
> phrase expressing the experiencer comes first, but grammatically is not
> subject, object, or possessor. In many of these idioms, the predicate is
> an adjective, but in some it is a verb with the experiencer as object, as
> in (2), where ‘they are happy’ is literally ‘heart follows them’.
>
>
>
> (2) Ri won n-rowlo-y
>
> 3pl heart 3sg.m.subj-follow-3pl.obj
>
> ‘They are happy.’
>
>
>
> Some idioms relating to mental states make use of words which appear to
> have different meanings outside of the idioms in which they occur. For
> instance in (3), the noun *nyukuel* only occurs in this idiom apart from
> the expression *oputo nyukuel* ‘food’ (where *oputo* means ‘yam’).
>
>
>
> (3)
>
> Kum
>
> m-aro-n
>
> nyukuel
>
> w-au.
>
>
>
> 1sg
>
> 1sg-and-3sg.m
>
> -
>
> 3sg-hit.1obj
>
> ‘We (I and him) are hungry.’
>
>
>
> The word *cheliel*, which occurs in the idiom in (4), occurs elsewhere
> only as an adjective meaning ‘hot’.
>
>
>
> (4)
>
> Runon
>
> cheliel
>
> w-oko-n.
>
>
>
> 3sg.m
>
> sick
>
> 3sg.f.subj-take-3sg.m.obj
>
> ‘He felt sick.’
>
>
>
> The word glossed as ‘angry’ in (5) is a transitive verb that does not
> occur outside this idiom; its subject is *won* ‘heart’ and its object
> denotes the experiencer.
>
>
>
> (5)
>
> Kum
>
> won
>
> n-p-akou.
>
>
>
> 1sg
>
> heart
>
> 3sg.m.subj-1obj-angry
>
> ‘I am angry.’
>
>
>
> In (6), the expression for ‘be ashamed’ has the word *chie* ‘mother’s
> older sister’ as subject and the verb *-arao* ‘carry on back, with strap
> around forehead’ (though one or both of these could be accidental
> homonymy), with the experiencer object of the verb.
>
>
>
> (6)
>
> To
>
> ri
>
> konungkol
>
> chie
>
> w-arao-y.
>
>
>
> then
>
> 3pl
>
> man.pl
>
> mother's.older.sister
>
> 3sg.f-carry.on.forehead-3pl.obj
>
> ‘Then the men were ashamed.’
>
>
>
> In (7), the verb is an intransitive verb, with *won* as subject and the
> experiencer as neither subject, object, nor possessor.
>
>
>
> (7)
>
> Ru
>
> won
>
> n-iri
>
>
>
> 3sg.fem
>
> heart
>
> 3sg.masc-stand.up
>
> ‘She fell in love with him.’
>
>
>
> In (8), the predicate is a word *nyopunon*, which occurs outside this
> idiom only as a noun meaning ‘leader’.
>
>
>
> (8)
>
> Akou
>
> n-aro-n
>
> won
>
> nyopunon.
>
>
>
> finish
>
> 3sg.m-and-3sg.m
>
> heart
>
> leader
>
> ‘The two [brothers] were happy.’
>
>
>
> In (9), the predicate is a noun *chrieu*, whose original meaning means
> ‘marks’ (as in a mark in a tree to signal some meaning, or sticks on the
> ground to show the route one has followed) but which is now used for any
> form of writing.
>
>
>
> (9)
>
> o
>
> runon
>
> mon
>
> won
>
> chrieu
>
> pelen
>
> cha
>
> runon
>
> n-awanie-y.
>
>
>
> and
>
> 3sg.m
>
> neg
>
> heart
>
> marks
>
> dog
>
> so.that
>
> 3sg.m
>
> 3sg.m-call-3pl
>
> ‘... he did not remember to call the dogs.’
>
>
>
> A different sort of idiom involving a body part is illustrated in (10),
> where the body part is saykil ‘liver’ functioning as postverbal nonobject
> with the reflexive form of the verb for ‘kill’ and the experiencer as
> subject.
>
>
>
> (10)
>
> Ru
>
> w-r-aypon
>
> saykil.
>
>
>
> 3sg.f
>
> 3sg.f-refl-kill
>
> liver
>
> ‘She is boastful.’
>
>
>
> The following is a table of these idioms:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *expression*
>
>
>
>
>
> *gloss*
>
>
>
> *meaning of first part*
>
>
>
> *meaning of second part*
>
> *grammatical relation of*
>
> *experiencer*
>
> won no kisiel
>
> be angry, get angry
>
> “heart”
>
> be fast
>
> -
>
> won no cheliel
>
> angry
>
> “heart”
>
> be hot
>
> -
>
> won nakou
>
> angry
>
> “heart”
>
> --
>
> obj
>
> won nyopu
>
> happy
>
> “heart”
>
> good
>
> -
>
> won nrowlo
>
> happy
>
> “heart”
>
> follow
>
> obj
>
> won nyupunon
>
> happy
>
> “heart”
>
> leader
>
> -
>
> won woyuen
>
> sad, to worry
>
> “heart”
>
> bad
>
> -
>
> won niri
>
> to fall in love
>
> “heart”
>
> stand up
>
> -
>
> won pel
>
> thirsty
>
> “heart”
>
> up out of water
>
> -
>
> won kel
>
> fall asleep
>
> ‘heart”
>
> --
>
> -
>
> won chrieu
>
> remember
>
> “heart”
>
> marks, writing
>
> -
>
> won osopul
>
> forget
>
> “heart”
>
> --
>
> -
>
> nyukuel wapu
>
> hungry
>
> --
>
> hit
>
> obj
>
> nyupul yarie
>
> sleepy
>
> sleep
>
> hit
>
> obj
>
> cheliel woko
>
> feel sick, be sick
>
> hot
>
> take
>
> obj
>
> chie warao
>
> ashamed
>
> (wife’s older
>
> sister)
>
> carry with strap around head
>
> obj
>
> -raypon saykil
>
> boastful / excited
>
> hit oneself
>
> liver
>
> subj
>
>
>
> Further examples:
>
>
>
> (11) Runon nyupul y-arie-n
>
> 3sg.m sleep 3pl-hit-3sg.m
>
> ‘He feels sleepy.’
>
>
>
> (12)
>
> O
>
> rul
>
> pa
>
> mon
>
> won
>
> kel,
>
> runon
>
> n-an
>
> wor.
>
>
>
> and
>
> 3.dimin
>
> that
>
> neg
>
> heart
>
> --
>
> 3sg.m
>
> 3sg.m-be.at
>
> high
>
> ‘But the little boy didn't go to sleep and stayed up.’
>
>
>
> (13)
>
> Kum
>
> mon
>
> won
>
> woyue-n.
>
>
>
>
>
> 1sg
>
> neg
>
> heart
>
> bad-m
>
>
>
> 'Nothing worries me.'
>
>
>
> (14) Isaac won nyopu-ø.
>
> Isaac heart good-f
>
> ‘Isaac is happy.’
>
>
>
> Matthew Dryer and Lea Brown
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Prof Peter K. Austin
>
> Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics
>
> Director, Endangered Languages Academic Programme
>
> Research Tutor and PhD Convenor
> Department of Linguistics, SOAS
> Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
> London WC1H 0XG
> United Kingdom
>
> Homepage: http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/index.php?cd=pa
>
> Academia: https://soas.academia.edu/PeterAustin
>
> ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Austin2
>
> ResearcherID: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/P-5066-2014
>
> ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3180-0524
>
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/peterkaustin
>
>
>
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