[Lingtyp] Pronominal nasality and the areality of iconicity

[Volker Gast]

Hi everybody,
that reminds me of voice quality in Mesoamerican languages and, perhaps, 
Spanish under influence of these languages. When I lived in Chiapas I 
realized that falsetto voice seemed to have a specific communicative 
function in the local variety of Spanish, but I don't know if there is any 
literature on that. Voice quality is known to be an areal feature of (at 
least some) Mesoamerican languages though, see for instance

http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:141924:12/component/escidoc:526982/Sicoli_Shifting_voices_Lang_in_Soc_2010.pdf

And see this publication on voice quality and iconic and/or indexical 
meanings in general:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-in-society/article/falsetto-voice-and-observational-logic-motivated-meanings/3229EF352CF54FEDB56F28D0915FDFB0

Best,
Volker

-----
http://www.uni-jena.de/~mu65qev

On Fri, 16 Feb 2018, David Gil wrote:

> Dear Ian and all,
> 
> A somewhat different example of the areal diffusion of an iconic pattern is discussed in https://wlp.shh.mpg.de/4/abstracts/ArnoldGil.pdf: here's the first paragraph from the abstract:
> 
> This paper presents some preliminary explorations into the ideophone eeeH and related forms occurring in (at least) three languages of West Papua: Papuan Malay, Ambel (an Austronesian
> language of Raja Ampat) and Roon (an Austronesian language of the Cenderawasih Bay). Phonetically, eeeH consists of an extra-long front mid vowel [e] associated with a high or high
> falling pitch contour. Semantically, eeeH expresses excessivity, typically with respect to literal or metaphorical distance; in addition, it endows the utterance with greater vividness
> and expressivity.
> 
> 
> In this example, iconicity is provided by the extra-long vowel and the high pitch contour, associated with excessivity and expressivity.  Although all three languages discussed are
> Austronesian, the paper argues that the distribution of the ideophone is an areal characteristic of a small region of New Guinea, and spread via diffusion.
> 
> During the recent ALS conference in Sydney, I learned that the iconic component of the above ideophone is also present in many languages of Australia, so its areal distribution is
> apparently much wider.
> 
> David
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/02/2018 14:42, JOO Ian wrote:
>
>       Dear fellow members of the mailing list,
>
>        
>
>       Gordon (1995) and Nichols & Peterson (1996) confirm that nasals are frequent in 1st and 2nd person pronouns around the world, but different continent prefer different nasals
>       for each pronoun: Eurasian languages prefer /m/ for the 1st pronoun, whereas the “Pacific Rim” prefers /m/ for the 2nd pronoun, and the initial /ŋ-/ is prevalent in
>       Australian languages.
>
>        
>
>       Nichols and Peterson conjectured that this may be the cause of "areal relatedness due to diffusion of phonosymbolic canons”. That is, iconic patterns may be diffused
>       throughout languages, not just independently emerge from each language. The example they add is the system of /mama/ and /papa/:
>
>        
>
>       In personal pronoun systems, n and m can be said to mark different dimensions of a minimal deictic space. They do so as well in 'mama-papa' systems (which are deictic but not
>       shifters). Both the pronouns and the child-language kin terms use consonants phonosymbolically to structure deictic space; the phonosymbolic principles are macroareal (mama
>       and papa, for instance, being distinctly western Eurasian forms); but the actual pronouns and kin terms themselves are not commonly borrowed. (p. 358)
>
>       I wonder if you have any other examples of iconic patterns areally spreading throughout specific regions, other than pronominal nasality and kinship terms. I would greatly
>       appreciate your help, as this is relevant for my thesis.
>
>        
>
>       From Daejeon, Korea,
>
>       Ian Joo
>
>       http://ianjoo.academia.edu
>
>        
>
>       References
>
>       Gordon, Matthew J. "The phonological composition of personal pronouns: implications for genetic hypotheses." Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Vol. 21. No.
>       1. 1995.
>
>        
>
>       Nichols, Johanna, and David A. Peterson. "The Amerind personal pronouns." Language (1996): 336-371.
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> -- 
> David Gil
> 
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
> 
> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
> 
> 
>